Some Like It On Top
(The Alpine Walking Track)
November 1998
An account of a recent trip along (to give it its proper title) the 'Australian Alps Walking Track', although in places there is no track and honorary membership of that Indian Tribe known for their response when asked "Which Tribe are You?" is often a possibility.
Late November/early December had always seemed to be the best time for attempting a walk such as this. Plenty of daylight without hot spells, water availability and the prospect of reasonably settled weather meant more flexibility in terms of campsites and therefore better use of time and so less food/fuel to carry (food/fuel drops at Mt Skene, Mt Hotham, Benambra-Corryong Rd, Dead Horse Gap and Kiandra meant that at most I carried supplies for 4 days plus 1 day spare). Other variables in favour of this time were no march flies (or February or January flies) less likelihood of lightning strike bushfires and less people.
There were to be two of us but the other person had to withdraw some weeks prior with an injured knee so given that food drops were already organised I decided to attempt the walk on my own. I got lots of advice from some doubting Thomases about what a dumb idea this was however it appealed to me as a reasonable challenge in the time available which had been finally decided for me by Margaret who had previously said "You needn't think you going away for more than 3 weeks and leaving me here on my own".
Day 1 - Early train from Melbourne to Moe thence by taxi to Walhalla, on the track by 10.30 am. Just before getting up onto Baw Baw Plateau the track passes through two wonderful natural environments, viz: an extensive and pure stand of mature silver wattles and the Mushroom Rocks area where many huge granite mushrooms sit stalklessly in grassy clearings. Camp 1 about 2km before Mt St Phillack.
Day 2 - Met a group of ACT walkers at Whitelaw Hut ruin then a long downhill walk off the Baw Baw Plateau via Stronachs Camp and an unplanned cross-country interlude to the Thomson River where the guide rails on the partly submerged log crossing were bent horizontal whether from the then subsiding flood or from long ago I don't know. Camp 2 half way up Mt Easton.
Day 3 - Various ups, downs and arounds before arriving at the Jordan River with plenty of evidence of the once thriving mining settlements of Jericho, Blue Jacket, Red Jacket and Violet Town. Just before Mt Victor I scored wine and cheese for lunch courtesy of 3 people in a 4WD who were out looking for an old goldmine. Rain had set in as I passed Fiddlers Green and turned off onto Champion Spur. Having heard from John L, Bev P and others about the Battle of the Black River I succeeded in outsmarting myself by following what I thought would be the track which arrives at the Black River at the final Alpine Track crossing only to end up camped in bad weather and strong winds on what turned out the next day to be a dead-end snig track.
Day 4 - Backtracked for 4km then down to the much maligned but quite magnificent Black River. The guidebook reference to 3 river crossings in the first 400m is wrong; after first crossing to the east bank, a track follows generally close to the river which is so clear that every detail of the river bottom is seen as though looking through a clean glass window. The seemingly endless uphill over Mt Shillinglaw to the Licola/Jamieson Rd led me into temptation to which I succumbed by hitching a ride for the last 6km to the food drop near Mt Skene. At last real food. Cherry ripes, tinned fruit, apricot fudge and chocolate. Water carried from Black River enabled me to camp on Mt McKinty.
Day 5 - Lots of fallen trees on the track from Mt Sunday down to Low Saddle then the seemingly endless ascent of Mt MacDonald accompanied by some outstanding rock formations and a snake. This turned out to be the only day on which I didn't see anyone else. Expected water source just below The Nobs failed to eventuate but seepage across the track below Square Top Mountain enabled me to camp just before Mt Clear with the snowgums aglow from a fabulous sunset.
Day 6 - Mt Clear is just that - a flat treeless basalt cap from which one less than an infinite number of mountains can be seen. On past Chesters Yard and the 4WD mudbath below the King Billies to Mt Magdala where a group out daywalking from Macalister Springs offered me the use of a mobile phone to contact home. Being a Saturday there were people everywhere (45 in all) between here and Mt Speculation. Shared the Catherine Saddle campsite with 2 others one of whom fortunately had a tube of seam sealer with which I was able to reattach the soles and uppers of my boots.
Day 7 - An early start so as to leave me with plenty of time to recover from geographical embarrassments on Mt Despair, The Razor and The Viking. Between The Razor and Viking Saddle was an awe-inspiring stand of Alpine Ash (obviously 1939 regrowth but (as yet) inaccessible to loggers) with the forest floor a criss-cross layer of once tall silver wattles. Met a superfit Jerusalemite couple at Viking Saddle - they'd walked in many of the major National Parks in WA, NT, SA and Q, and were on a 10 day round trip from Mt Buller via Wonnangatta (plus he was carrying 8kg of photo gear). Lots of milling about before finally locating the route off The Viking (presently part of a designated Wilderness Area (ie no signage) but about to be reclassified to reduce the impact of random wanderings such as mine). Windy and wet camp about 8km east of Barry Saddle.
Day 8 A maze of timber roads as I headed NE over Mts Selwyn South (obviously once covered with huge trees) and Selwyn towards Mt Hotham. Hail then rain from Mt Murray through to Mt St Bernard, where, after less than 100m along the road in cold, wet and windy weather, I was offered (and accepted) a lift to Mt Hotham village, another fine food feast and a real bed.
Day 9 - Met 3 school groups and a few other walkers between Hotham and Ropers Hut which I thought I had to myself until another (generally exhausted) school group straggled in about 8pm!
Day 10 - Lots of newly fallen trees (domino effect obvious) on the way down Duane Spur and up T-Spur. I assume the very heavy snow fall in late July which came in from the east (and was associated with the Wollongong floods) was the cause. Pleasant walking out along Long Spur to Big River Saddle where I met a couple who were taking a laid back 55 days over the trip. The fabulous view from the top of Mt Wills plus the comforts of the nearby hut forced an early finish to the day.
Day 11 - Down (980m) off Mt Wills to Gills Ck, then up an intermittently vague track to a sometimes confusing sequence of fire trails, eventually arriving at the Mitta Mitta suspension (foot) bridge. Opened in mid 1997, it failed to c lear the 1998 floods, and is now corkscrewed to the extent that a 'Bridge Closed' sign is posted on the road accessible east side, thus (in a classic catch 22) preventing a similar sign being erected on the west bank, so I crossed with a clear conscience and some difficulty. Lost track of signs and signs of tracks on the scramble down into Morass Ck, eventually finding the food drop beside the Benambra-Corryong Rd just before dark.
Day 12 - Uphill to Turnback Ck Fire Track, thence via Beloka Range to Johnnie s Top, where seemingly illogical marker placements delayed me before a fairly slow descent in the rain down a sequence of diverging spurs to Buenba Ck, where the by now soggy flats and banker creeks combined with my map reading error led to some hands and knees scrambling through titree scrub to locate a log crossing of Buenba Ck, a dryish campsite and a stoveless tea.
Day 13 - Memorable interplay of fog and early sunlight on the treed flats along Buenba Ck preceded a climb up to the Mt Hope Rd, then on and down to a delightful lunch spot in the sun at Buckwong Ck. First (of hundreds) brumbies seen on the way up the long narrow clearings beside this creek, then a scrub scramble up to the (aptly named) Misery Trail. On the way down to Dead Horse Ck, I was ag gressively approached by a lively stallion (mare in tow) who snorted, pawed the ground, left a large depos(h)it, then galloped away uphill. Late camp due to temporary loss of map contact.
Day 14 - The marked route again tried to follow seemingly random brumb y tracks along the in places steep sided creek valley, so I struck across country to the Limestone Ck Track, thence via a lovely camp-site on Limestone Ck and more brumby tracks up Stony Ck to an old marble mine, where I again abandoned the designated rou t e and headed uphill to meet the Black Mountain Rd just west of the Cowombat Track junction. After the previous 4 days, progress along this track was (to quote John L) a doddle and, bypassing The Cobberas due to low cloud, I ended up camping on the track a few km past Cowombat Flat (rumoured to be the site of the sighting of a burrowing ruminant).
Day 15 - Pleasant walking along grassy management trails on the NSW side of the border, where far more control seems to be exercised over 4WD activities than is the case in Victoria's Alpine NP. Carters (Tin Mine) Hut on the Ingeegoodbee River is a wonderful albeit rebuilt example of 1930's bush architecture, as is the further north Cascade Hut in a clearing just above Cascade Ck. My food drop at Dead Horse Gap had been broken into by currawongs, leaving me only with a bottle of metho, two tins of tuna, one battery (perhaps the other had been taken by a battery hen?) and (luckily) my maps for the leg to Kiandra, so I hitched into Thredbo and stayed overnight to resupply.
Day 16 - Supermarket opened late, so I went up on the lift instead of hitching back to DHG, and didn't start walking till 11.00. A perfect day for traversing the Main Range. I met two groups from Switzerland between Rawson Pass and Mt Carruthers, apolo gising to them for our lack of pointy peaks and normally still present snow. After much meandering across the Rolling Ground, I eventually found a track which emerged right at Schlink Pass, and camped with a school group at the Schlink Hilton.
Day 17 - Anot her sunny light wind day. I chose to follow the Fire Trail past Valentines, across the Geehi R, then via Grey Mare Hut and the Grey Mare Fire Trail to O'Keefes Hut and on to Mackeys Hut where, with time to spare before dark, I recorded in the logbook deta i ls of a bushwalking rule handed down over generations in our family, and hence known as the Law of Relatives. If E is the energy expended in carrying a pack, m the actual weight carried in the pack, and c the percentage of the capacity of the pack occupie d by the material being carried, then E = mc2. Thus a pack filled to 90% of its capacity would only require 81% of the energy required to carry the same weight if the pack were full, an 80% full pack would only require 64% of the same energy, etc. As you w ould know, this rule was subsequently applied to walkers travelling at the speed of light.
Day 18 - Choice of a direct, shorter but slower walking route to Happys Hut then on to the Tabletop Fire Trail or the more roundabout but faster walking route via Cro oks Racecourse was decided in favour of the latter. Occasional evidence of wild pig activity, but much worse was the obviously recent illegal entries by 4WD vehicles, with streamline crossings often a real mess. A very windy day, with several failed attem pts at rain followed by a sunny afternoon saw me at Kiandra by 4pm and facing up to another obligatory food drop based banquet.
Day 19 - On the track and in the fog by 6am, but soon lost 3/4hr due to an incorrect signpost. Ideal walking conditions - no stee p hills, sunny/windy day, all streams flowing, open country, grassy track, no-one else around. Brief stop at Witses Hut, an unsuccessful attempt at a dry feet crossing of the Murrumbidgee, a short stopover at Hainsworth Hut (the initial minimum destinatio n for the day), then up onto Cooleman Plain and several mobs of brumbies. At this stage I decided to push on to Pockets Hut, arriving just before dark. A group of walkers from Canberra had set up camp, having trundled in their BBQ supplies from the roadhead 7km away on a converted hand pulled golf buggy, so I had sausages and cold beer from them for tea, followed by my own dehy (yum). For connoisseurs of mountain huts, this is a compulsory stop.
Day 20 - Another hut for the enthusiast - Oldfields Hut, overloo king the flats along the Goodradigbee River. Up to Murray Gap and getting into the ACT brought the light at the end of the tunnel clearly into view. Down to and across the Cotter R, up through straggly forest to Cotter Gap, then down and around to eventu a lly arrive in the Orroral Valley, whence a satellite tracking station once operated. My boots were at the limit of their traction on the steep gravel road from here up to the top of the range, where I slept on the picnic table at the brand new Honeysuckl e Creek visitor area.
Day 21 - Early start, hoping to be in Canberra in time for the midday bus back to Vic. The last downhill from Mt Tennent seemed endless, as did the high I felt on arriving at the Tharwa Visitor Centre and the end of the walk. Much bette r than drugs, and definitely not addictive.
Reflection: Details of the range of natural environments, from forest to feldmark, the numerous rivers, creeks, other watercourses, lakes, mountain ranges and other faraway places with strange sounding names, th e sites of historic significance where only part of the story is known, the endless sequence of ups/alongs/downs, the constant questions of where am I, where will I be tonight, what will the places that I haven't been to before be like, will the food drop s still be there, will a branch drop on the tent in the wind, whether the weather will be wet tomorrow, who will I meet next on the track, will the boots last, will I last, etc and how I felt at the end of the trip are all now stored in the Alpine Adventure File on my mental hard (or floppy? Ed.) disk, accessible for any future virtual reality trips I might undertake. A wonderful experience.
Peter Galvin